Makers is Cory Doctorows fifth novel, but
the first novel-length work of his that I have read, I have previously read him at novella
length and shorter in various Years Best collections and was favourably
impressed, so I was keen to see how he handled fictions long form.

Makers
is set in the not too distant future of now plus five, ten or fifteen years (no dates are
mentioned) and, with the aid of a about ten characters, extrapolates current economic and
manufacturing technology trends into a vision of that future that is neither utopic nor
dystopic, just a little unexpected. The ideas he works with: three dimensional
photocopying, distributed feedback loops, and endocrine solutions to obesity are available
now or on the cusp of availability  he simply shows the potential for their
implementation.

Unfortunately, for large patches of Makers I felt I was reading
an economics treatise for the science fiction herd  those who have heard the
terminology of business economics and financing, but know none of the implication and what
this means in practice with the novels characters acting as cyphers for
explaining economic theory to practice. The slipping into soapbox mode, plus the absence
of formal chapters breaks (it was a book in three parts) meant that I found it difficult
to pick the book up again after I put it down for the day. But when I was reading it I
wanted to know how that part would unfold so was loathe to put the book down again.

Did the book work well as a novel? I suppose so. I was reasonably happy with the
storyline, and how the characters developed and interacted, with these being distinct
characters not variations on a theme; I was even comfortable with the ending. I could have
done without the less-than-subtle info-dumps of economics and sociology as these
distracted significantly from the story as a story.

In summary, a better than average (not brilliant, but not bad either) novel about
market economics with the bonus that its science fiction. Worth the time to read?
Yes.